Sochi 2014 Olympics Ratings Roundup

So, you know those Year in Review Sports Ratings Roundup posts I try to do and in fact did last year? Yeeeaaah, turns out I can only do them in odd-numbered years. While the Olympic primetime windows get all the glamor and attention, NBC’s afternoon and late night windows attract many millions of viewers as well, and SportsBusiness Daily only reports numbers for them for the weekend (and the Friday night late night window). I’d like to think the weekday windows have substantially smaller audiences than the weekend windows, especially in daytime, but I have no idea what numbers are normal for them; at best I could assume they’d do no better than eight million viewers but the ratings declines the Sochi games experienced as they went along makes any sort of estimation difficult, and the real number range could be upwards of 9M. There’s not much point in doing more than the Top Live Events list at that point.

Besides those NBC windows, I’m also missing several USA windows, especially from the second week, solely because Son of the Bronx didn’t normally cover that network when his blog was going. He did post a general “ratings recap” post on TV Media Insights, but seemed to abandon it in the second week, and doesn’t seem to have been able to do much to close the NBC gaps. The first chart below contains all the NBC numbers I know about, plus two subsets of the NBCSN coverage NBC broke out in early press releases for context. The second chart contains all the cable windows I know about. Click here to learn more about how to read the charts.

Known NBC Windows and NBCSN Subwindows

Information in this chart from SportsBusiness Daily and TV Media Insights.

Vwr (mil)

HH

18-49

Time

Net

1

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Opening Ceremony

31.69

17.0

8.6

2/7 8:00 PM

NBC

2

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 2 Primetime

26.323

14.4

7.2

2/9 7:30 PM

NBC

3

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 1 Primetime

25.115

13.9

6.3

2/8 8:00 PM

NBC

4

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 4 Primetime

23.834

13.7

6.6

2/11 8:00 PM

NBC

5

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 10 Primetime

23.546

13.8

5.6

2/17 8:00 PM

NBC

6

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 6 Primetime

23.022

13.4

5.9

2/13 8:00 PM

NBC

7

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 3 Primetime

22.438

12.8

6.5

2/10 8:00 PM

NBC

8

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 9 Primetime

21.27

12.1

4.9

2/16 7:00 PM

NBC

9

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 5 Primetime

20.971

12.1

5.6

2/12 8:00 PM

NBC

10

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 12 Primetime

20.187

12.2

5.0

2/19 8:00 PM

NBC

11

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day -1

20.016

11.3

6.0

2/6 8:00 PM

NBC

12

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 13 Primetime

20.01

12.2

5.0

2/20 8:00 PM

NBC

13

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 7 Primetime

19.109

10.9

4.5

2/14 8:00 PM

NBC

14

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 11 Primetime

18.934

11.2

5.0

2/18 8:30 PM

NBC

15

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 8 Primetime

17.097

9.6

4.4

2/15 8:30 PM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 2

15.358

9.1

2/9 2:00 PM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Closing Ceremony

15.117

8.7

3.2

2/23 8:30 PM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 14 Primetime

14.934

8.8

3.6

2/21 8:30 PM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 15 Primetime

13.28

7.8

2.8

2/22 8:30 PM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 1

12.472

7.5

2/8 2:30 PM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

9.095

5.5

2/16 3:00 PM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 1

9.083

5.7

2/9 12:00 AM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

8.204

5.1

2/15 3:00 PM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 2

8.032

5.2

2/9 11:35 PM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

6.765

4.5

2/16 11:30 PM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

6.277

4

2/23 2:00 PM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

6.195

4

2/16 12:00 AM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 3

6

2/11 12:00 AM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

5.956

4

2/15 12:05 AM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Day 4

5.8

2/12 12:05 AM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Ski Jumping

5.5

2/9 1:00 PM

NBCSN

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

4.925

3.2

2/22 2:30 PM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics:
Figure Skating

4.9

2/8 1:00 PM

NBCSN

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

4.726

3.1

2/23 12:00 AM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

4.608

2.8

2/22 12:30 AM

NBC

Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics Hockey
Gold Medal Game: Canada v. Sweden

3.614

2.5

2/23 7:30 AM

NBC

Most Watched Cable Windows

Information in this chart from TVbytheNumbers, Son of the Bronx and TV Media Insights.